GRADE SIX SCIENCE
Hello Boys and Girls, Did you have a great week? Have you been reading a lot, helping at home, as well as revising? How well did you do in the revision exercise last week? Did you get them all right? Good. Ensure that you are careful on the road, along paths and on the rivers. This week we will continue to look briefly at forests and then at the environment.
Forests, as we saw last week, are really very important to life. They are so important that the United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on the management of forests, conserving of forests and the development of all types of forests.
30% of the earth’s land is covered with forests. Trees make up forests which are needed to keep our planet alive and healthy.
Did you find out what rainforests are? Rainforests are forests which are characterised by high rainfall. Rainforests are tall dense jungles described because of the high amount of rainfall they get per year. Find out where rainforests can be found around the world. Did your list include Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America (of course this includes Guyana)? How do you feel about rainforests? Do they need protection? How can this happen? Have you ever been in a rain forest area? People depend on the world’s rainforests for many things, such as regulating the water cycle and storing carbon dioxide. Can you think of other ways?
WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN IF ALL THE FORESTS DISAPPEARED?
Discuss this with someone: a friend, your parent, your teacher, …
Rainforests are ecosystems teeming with life, from the forest floor right up to the rainforest canopy. (Find out what is a canopy.) Find these words in the word search below: Let us look now at our environment. What does the word, environment, mean? For now, we will look at it to mean our surroundings. Our surroundings include the scenery, the climate, vegetation, wildlife, and so on. These are all natural resources. Did you know that the environment also includes man-made resources? Yes, they do. Some are *
below the ground – water supply sewerage disposal, etc. * on the ground – roads, beaches, runways, etc. * above the ground – hotels restaurants, cinemas, etc.
Like other living creatures, human beings live in the environment. We depend on the environment. Can you tell ways in which we depend on the environment? Call a friend and together list these ways.
Human beings all have lots of influence on the environment. The influence can be positive or negative. Let us list some positive and negative ways in which we have influence on our environment. Next week we will look at some of these items more closely.
Let’s take a brief look at the resources that we have been mentioning. Resources are very closely linked with the environment. The physical resources are the earth’s natural resources – our land, forests, water, soils, minerals. Some are renewable and some are not. Mankind has to be very careful about how these resources are used.
Look carefully at the photograph below and discuss it with a friend. Until next week Sunday, be good, Boys and Girls.